GM Shows Us How The Cadillac Celestiq’s Design Was Refined Over The Years

General Motors’ design center has taken to Instagram to show off the latest work it’s proud of: the Cadillac Celestiq. Recently unveiled to the world, the photos shared by the center offer a look inside the creation of the flagship EV.

“The design of the Cadillac Celestiq was refined and developed over years,” it writes in the post. “The initial design inspiration evolved into a clay model, a hard vision model, and ultimately became the guiding light for the production Celestiq.”

Indeed, back in 2020, Cadillac’s design director, Brian Smith, said that the Celestiq lived many lives before going into production. Although always intended as a super luxurious flagship model, it wasn’t initially intended to be electric.

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The automaker may have even teased the model back in 2018, when it announced a new halo vehicle that would “stun the world.” It would have just caught the tail end of the internal combustion era, though, and would have been out of date before it hit the road. So Cadillac decided to shift over to electric propulsion.

As we know, the front and rear lighting elements and the overall design language were created before the Lyriq. Even though the slightly less luxurious electric SUV will hit the road before the Celestiq, its design was inspired by the sedan.

Cadillac said, when it unveiled the car, that its designers had immersed themselves in mid-century architecture and the models that the brand built in its first 50 years. Classic luxury is exactly what the automaker says it’s trying to get across here.

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“The Celestiq showcar demonstrates Cadillac’s commitment to precise handcrafted vehicles,” General Motors Design wrote in another Instagram post. “The concept is saturated with luxurious stitching, polished aluminum, and jewelry like detail.”

It goes on to say that the show car was handbuilt by craftspeople at the GM Design Center in Warren, Michigan. It won’t just be the show car that gets that kind of treatment, though, because Cadillac invested $81 million in its Global Technical Center in Warren to hand build each Celestiq production car there.

“This investment is a great example of our commitment to GM’s EV transformation as we apply our manufacturing expertise to a one-of-a-kind, ultra-luxury vehicle for the Cadillac brand,” said Gerald Johnson, GM’s executive vice president of Global Manufacturing and Sustainability, earlier this year. “The advanced manufacturing technology and tools we are utilizing on Celestiq will help our team deliver the highest quality vehicles to our customers.”